President Donald Trump on Monday tapped Todd Blanche, a top Justice Department official and former personal attorney for the president, to run the Library of Congress, a Justice Department spokesperson confirmed to HuffPost.
Blanche is expected to continue his role as deputy attorney general while also serving as the acting librarian of Congress, overseeing one of the largest libraries in the world. That would make him one of several Trump officials to hold multiple demanding jobs at completely different agencies.
Trump ousted the previous librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, last week. Hayden, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, was the first woman and Black person to hold the renowned library’s top post.
It’s not clear what sort of professional librarian experience Blanche might have. His LinkedIn page says he studied communications, economics and political science at American University and later received his juris doctor from Brooklyn Law School. It makes no mention of a degree in library science.
Blanche worked as Trump’s lead defense attorney in his criminal trial in New York City last year.
Politico reported Monday that Blanche’s appointment as acting librarian is apparently in dispute. Robert Randolph Newlen, a library official who took over after Hayden’s firing last week, wrote an email to library staff saying, “Congress is engaged with the White House and we have not received direction from Congress about how to move forward.”
The Library of Congress did not immediately respond to a request from HuffPost on Monday seeking clarity on the library’s leadership.
As HuffPost reported last week, Trump’s favorite loyalists have a way of finding themselves in several jobs at the same time. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also serving as Trump’s acting national security adviser, as well as the acting head of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the National Archives and Records Administration.
Meanwhile, Jamieson Greer is helping coordinate Trump’s trade war as the U.S. trade representative while also ostensibly running the Office of Special Counsel and the Office of Government Ethics.
Experts in executive branch staffing told HuffPost they are concerned with all the “dual hatting” going on in the administration, noting that any one of these jobs requires full-time attention, not to mention specific training and experience.
Blanche serving as both deputy attorney general and the librarian of Congress at the same time would likely be “another first,” said Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a scholar on the American presidency and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“I have never heard of this before,” Tenpas said in an email Monday. “The DAG job is immense and so consequential.”
